


Iridescent

by SuperTempsRUs (JaskiersWolf)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Can be platonic or romantic, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, but should be read as romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaskiersWolf/pseuds/SuperTempsRUs
Summary: In a world where you can only see colour once you meet your soulmate, Donna accidentally finds herself marrying the wrong person. It was all a joke gone wrong and now she can't work out a way to escape.Lucky for her, the universe has other plans.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Donna Noble
Comments: 33
Kudos: 124
Collections: karabelle’s fave shortfic





	1. The Beginning

Donna Noble was glowing as she walked down the aisle towards her fiancé, Lance. Not in the way most brides would as they slowly made their way towards their future spouse and married life. No. Donna Noble was literally glowing. A bright light seemed to seep from under her skin and she felt an intense pain in every cell of her body. 

Donna Noble did what she did best and screamed the church down. 

* * *

“So what do you want the colour scheme to be?” Sylvia asked as she tore through pages of yet another wedding magazine. 

Donna groaned internally. Colour schemes. She should have seen that one coming. She’d only known Lance a few months before she’d begged him to marry her, although that was not the tale she had woven to her mother. As far as Sylvia Noble was aware, Lance Bennett was Donna’s soulmate. She hadn’t meant to lie to her mother but her nagging about finding her soulmate had been getting unbearable. Every conversation they had led to colours and soulmates and Donna had just snapped. She’d been casually seeing a guy from HR for a few weeks at the time but they’d both known it wouldn’t be going anywhere serious. You didn’t commit to a relationship without colours. Everyone knew that but Donna was bored of waiting. She didn’t want to waste her life waiting for colours. So she dated around, it was more acceptable these days, mostly amongst widows but it was starting to catch on with pre-colours. It was all going alright with Lance, they mostly just talked at work and occasionally took their lunch breaks together. He didn’t seem particularly interested in anything more and Donna was alright with that. 

Until one fateful day when she’d accidentally told her mother in a fit stupidity and rage that she’d already met her soulmate. She insisted that she’d been hiding it because she didn’t want anyone to make a fuss, so naturally her mum went mental. Once someone had met their soulmate it was pretty common for a wedding to follow within a few weeks. Anything over six months was considered strange. Why wouldn’t you marry your soulmate? What were you hiding?

So Donna begged Lance to agree to marry her. She’d never meant for it to get this far. She’d been working on a way out of the wedding ever since they’d gotten engaged but neither of them could work out a way to break it off without admitting they’d been lying. 

Lance kept insisting that it would all work out in the end. Except the wedding was two weeks away and her mum was asking about the colour scheme. It was supposed to be the key element of the ceremony. The bonded couple finally being able to enjoy colours together as they faced their new life together. 

“Oh we haven’t really talked about it.” Donna snapped, hoping to avoid the question.

“Not talked about it!” Sylvia laughed in disbelief. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“There’s just so many colours, Mum. How can we choose our favourites?” Donna tried. “From the sky to the grass. There’s just so much!” 

Sylvia laughed and hugged Donna close. Donna sighed in relief. It had worked. Thank god for all those years reading teen magazines about colour. 

“You know, your father and I were much the same when we first saw colour. We couldn’t believe that anyone could just have one favourite colour, and then you were born.” Sylvia said and Donna rolled her eyes. It was a story she’d heard only about a hundred times.

“And you saw the colour of my hair. I know, Mum. Honestly. There’s much better colours out there than this old thing.” Donna waved a lock of her grey hair in her mother’s face. 

“You don’t like it?” Sylvia frowned. 

Donna panicked. Oops. “Of course I do! It’s so warm and fiery.” She repeated her father’s words. “but I guess you built it up too much. Purple’s not bad?” She guessed. 

“Purple!” Sylvia cried with an exasperated laugh. 

Donna crossed her arms. “What’s wrong with purple?” 

“Nothing, sweetheart.” Sylvia kissed her hair. “I just thought with your hair, you might prefer green.”

“Purple.” Donna insisted. It was too late now. She couldn’t let her mum know that she had literally no clue what she was talking about. 

And so purple and red became their colour scheme. Red because apparently that was a royal colour and she’d always fancied being a Queen. Lance couldn’t object to it without giving the game away and all their parents thought it was just grand. 

Until Donna Noble disappeared in the middle of her own wedding and the world turned upside down.

* * *

The Doctor had seen colour before. Every time his body died it took the colours with it. It was unbelievably frustrating. As such Time Lord culture had evolved so that they would have to get married again after every regeneration. Most of the time, Time Lord soulmates remained consistent regardless of regeneration, they were able to manipulate their new bodies to a certain extent and most of the time that meant allowing their new bodies and personalities to still remain compatible to their mates. 

The Doctor was different. He was cursed. His soulmates never stayed with him past one lifetime if that. 

His first wife had regenerated before him and they were both left without colours. The Doctor took his young granddaughter and an old Tardis and ran. It wasn’t fair. He had adored his wife and she had regenerated into someone that wouldn’t love him. He ran into her a few regenerations later to find she had a new wife and family that had stayed together throughout several regenerations. 

His fourth soulmate had been a fleeting thing. The young human man had saved his life whilst he tried to stave off an alien invasion. They hadn’t even spoken and the Doctor had had colours for all of 2 minutes before they had faded back to grey. 

And so it went on. 

His last soulmate had been Grace but even she was lost to him eventually. The Time War had torn his race apart and he’d been left alone to survive in a world of grey. 

When he’d regenerated to save Rose he’d been sure she would have been his soulmate. The young girl had adored him and he was really rather fond of her. He’d chosen a younger body and what he thought would be a handsome face for her but still the world had stayed in grey. Rose had been disappointed too. All of the things he’d been able to show her in the universe, colour had never been one of them. 

Still, he was devastated that he had to say goodbye. Tears rolled down his cheek as the beach faded from view and he was back in the Tardis. He ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes. 

When he opened them again something was different. 

Gold.

Bronze. 

He looked down at his suit. 

Brown. 

“What?” He rubbed his eyes again to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake. There was no way he was seeing colour. It was impossible. He was in flight, in the middle of deep space. There was nothing in the universe that could breach the Tardis shields when they were in flight. 

He turned to face the central column of the Tardis and jumped back as he noticed a redhead in a wedding dress. 

“What?!” He said again louder. 

* * *

The first thing Donna saw when she stopped screaming was her hair. 

It was so bright. 

She stared at the bright colourful strands for a moment before she even realised she wasn’t in the church anymore. 

“What?!” A man with soft fluffy hair and a dull suit shouted from across the bizarre looking room. 

Donna looked around. It was like something out those Star Trek films her dad liked, like an alien space ship! Gramps would go mental for this. There was a strange console looking thing in the middle of the room with a glowing column that went all the way up to the ceiling. The whole room looked like it was falling apart. If it was a spaceship then it wasn’t a very good one. She’d have expected something more clinical and clean, and where were all the seats and funny looking screens?

The man, who she assumed was the driver was a skinny bloke with sharp cheek bones that were covered in freckles. His hair and suit and eyes were all the same colour. Either he could see colour and really liked that colour or he had no idea how boring he looked. Her first colour experience and the most interesting thing here was her own hair. 

She almost laughed at that. Her parents had been right after all. God she hoped that man didn’t have purple hair, otherwise her wedding looked like a mess. 

No. People didn’t just have purple hair and it didn’t look light enough to be blond. Maybe brunet? Was that brown? Brown hair, brown eyes, brown suit. Apart from the suit that all made sense. 

“Who are you?” She asked in wonder. 

“But…” He stammered. 

“Where am I?” She asked when he didn’t manage an answer. 

“What?” He spluttered.

Oh dear lord her soulmate was an idiot. Just her luck. She took a deep breath and looked around at the impossible room once more. Smiling to herself as her hair caught in the light coming from the middle of the room. 

“What the hell is this place?” She snapped, hoping it would finally get an answer out of the man. 

“What?!” He shouted again.

* * *

The Doctor ran his hands through his hair, which was disappointingly not ginger. He’d been able to dream for an entire year that he was ginger but ironically it was this real life ginger goddess that shattered that dream as she came crashing into his life. He sighed. For a Time Lord he’d never had good timing, or maybe the universe was just out to get him. All he wanted to do was grieve the loss of his best friend and now he had to deal with getting a new soulmate, who was apparently being stalked by robot Santas, and save the Earth for the thousandth time this lifetime. 

“So what’s this colour?” Donna asked as she pointed to her hair that was currently half hidden under the collar of his suit jacket that he’d draped over her shoulders. 

“Ginger. A shade of orange which is sort of like red.” He explained wearily as they looked out over London. 

“What?” She raised an eyebrow. “How can it be three colours?” 

“It’s not. It’s orange. Ginger is the name of the hair colour.” He tried to explain.

“And how do you know all this again? People don’t have more than one soulmate.” She glared at him. “Oh my god is this some kind of alien trick? Did you get in my head and lure me in with colours? That’s not going to work on me, Martian! I’m getting married!” She snapped.

“What? No.” He shook his head, a tad offended by her suggestion. “It’s not some alien trick. Just my people sometimes have more than one soulmate.”

“Your people? Who are they?” Donna narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Not Martians.” He deflected. 

“So that’s blue?” She pointed to the Tardis and he nodded. “But that’s also blue?” She pointed to the sky. 

“Yes.” He agreed, exasperated by her constant questions. Didn’t she ever shut up? The universe had to be joking with this one. He hadn’t had a soulmate in two whole lives and now he had this crazy redhead? What was wrong with Rose? Or even Jack before he’d been all messed up in time. Mickey at least had had some brains on him. 

“But they’re different.” Donna pointed out. 

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Look. Not being funny or anything…”

“Clearly.”

“But this really isn’t important right now.” He sighed. He needed to work out why the Santas were after Donna. 

Oh that reminded him. He’d needed to try and stop them from tracing her. He pulled a bio-damping ring from his pocket. The Tardis had left it on the console before they’d had to evacuate the box from all the flames that were spreading rapidly around the room. 

“Oh and you’d better put this on.” He held out the ring. 

“Gold!” She pointed at the ring with a delighted expression before she frowned. “Look, I know we’re soulmates and everything but you don’t have to…”

The Doctor realised as she did what the ring looked like. He felt his eyes widen and his hearts raced in his chest. “Oh no. No no no. I didn’t mean. It’s not. Bio-damp ring, not a wedding ring.” He explained hurriedly. 

“Oh right. Of course. Obviously.” Donna muttered and held out her hand.

The Doctor frowned as a thought hit him. “And do you really think I would propose like that?” 

“Oh just put a ring on it, Alien Boy!” Donna chided and wiggled her fingers. 

And then he laughed. He hadn’t done that all day. Not since he’d lost Rose. A strange warmth bubbled up in his stomach and his hearts did a flip in his chest. 

Huh? 

Strange.

Maybe she was his soulmate after all. 

* * *

Donna raced into the reception with the Doctor by her side. The first thing she noticed was the disco lights flying around the ceiling. She watched the brightly coloured rainbows dance in awe. It was beautiful. No wonder colour scheme were such an important part of weddings. It was all so overwhelming. 

The second thing she noticed was the music and the dancing and the overall revelry of the room. 

No one was crying or wondering where she was. 

Everyone was celebrating.

At her reception. 

Without her. 

She grasped the Doctor’s hand tightly as she tried to contain her anger. Ok sure Lance hadn’t been her real soulmate but the only people that knew that were her and Lance. Everyone else should be concerned that he’d just lost his soulmate! They should be out looking for her. Even her parents were dancing with glasses of red wine in their hands. 

She stood hand in hand with the Doctor gaping out at the room. 

Well then. She huffed and then let out a distressed cry. The music stopped abruptly as her guests finally noticed her arrival. Lance, the traitor, was the last to notice. He was too busy dancing with the bitch that was her best friend, in her stupid blue dress and her stupid blonde hair. 

Donna noted that their colour scheme was actually very beautiful, very regal. Lance wore a deep burgundy waistcoat that made him look incredibly handsome but strangely the Doctor’s fondness for brown was starting to grow on her. His eyes were particularly gorgeous, they were warm and soft and god damn sexy. Then there were the pale brown freckles that dusted his cheeks, she’d always hated her own freckles but on him they looked so beautiful that she was almost glad that she had her own set to match. His hair was a lovely shade of brown that she couldn’t quite identify yet. The magazines had never mentioned how many shades of each colour there were. But his hair, in the sunlight like up on the roof, had shades of ginger. A browny ginger warmth. There was probably a name for that as well. 

“Donna!” Her mum gasped when she saw her. 

Blonde. 

Strange. Donna had always assumed her mother had grey hair. When she was younger she was told that older people had grey hair and her mum’s hair had been so light that Donna had always just assumed. 

“You had the reception without me?” Donna asked, trying not to seem so obviously distracted by the colours that were swirling around her. How had she ever managed to convince anyone that she could see all of this? Her descriptions of yellow and blue and green felt so empty now. 

Her mother argued back with her until Donna pretended to start crying. She couldn’t answer the questions right now. It was all too peculiar. Spaceships and aliens and colours, and Donna couldn’t talk about any of it. The Doctor seemed reluctant to let her hand go but with one final squeeze let her embrace her fiancé, ex-fiancé. She gave a wink to the Doctor as she hugged Lance to let him know she was ok. 

“I guess you were right.” Donna murmured to her ex-fiancé. “It did sort itself out.”

Lance gave a strained laugh. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

* * *

The Doctor looked fondly down at his ginger soulmate as she gazed out into space. Around the Tardis bits of dust and chunks of rocks were drifting around without any gravity to pull them together. Donna was staring out with a look of pure wonder and delight. He could see the light of the distant stars glittering in her gorgeous blue eyes. He noticed she had golden rings within the blue of her irises, the same golden hue of regeneration energy. She was truly a soulmate of a Time Lord. 

“It’s beautiful.” She breathed quietly into the vast expanse of space. 

The Doctor smiled fondly at her. “Yeah.” He agreed as he watched a loose strand of fiery red hair catch in the wind. 

Donna looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow. “Oi! Martian Boy. You’re not even watching!” She whacked him on the arm. 

He chuckled, not feeling even the teeniest bit guilty that she’d caught him staring at her. The pale pink blush that painted her freckled face told him she wasn’t really mad at him, probably just a little embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. “Beautiful.” He repeated. 

She rolled her eyes and turned back to face the empty space which would eventually be home to the Earth. “Don’t be a tart.” She chided. “Come on then. Tell me how this works then. I know you’re dying to, Spaceman.”

And so he did. He explained how eventually one big rock would have a big enough gravitational pull to start pulling all the smaller rocks towards it, a bit like a big old space magnet drawing all the iron filings in the vicinity towards it until the Earth was formed. Donna pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. She wasn’t quite following his explanation but she nodded nonetheless. The Doctor was beginning to realise just how wrong he’d been about her. She was special, immensely so. By all rights she should have been burning up with all the Huon particles that were inside of her by now but she barely seemed to be affected by it. She’d taken Lance’s betrayal completely in her stride, although it probably helped that they had never meant to get married in the first place. The Doctor almost couldn’t wait for Donna to tell her mother the truth about who her soulmate really was. He had gotten the feeling that Sylvia Noble wasn’t his biggest fan. Then again he had turned up to Donna’s reception holding her hand under a banner that said ‘Just Married’. That was never a good way to announce that you had been lying to your mother about your soulmate. 

Finally he turned out to watch the beginnings of the Earth, tearing his gaze away from the incredible human next to him. He let out a long breath as he took in the sight. He’d almost forgotten how beautiful the universe could be in multicolour. He’d almost gotten used to seeing it in shades of grey since he’d lost Grace. Space seemed so much smaller when it was just a blanket of black and white. Now he was seeing it all again for the first time with these eyes in bright and beautiful technicolour. 

Donna was right. It was incandescently beautiful, dazzling… ethereal. He watched in awe as the newly formed Sun burned in the young sky casting a burnt orange glow out onto the elements of the Earth, his surrogate home. He wondered idly why he’d never thought to come and see this before. Perhaps somewhere in his hearts he knew that he’d been waiting for Donna. He laughed. Apparently he was something of a romantic this regeneration. He probably should have guessed that. 

“It makes the reception seem like a speck of dust.” Donna sighed. “We’re all so tiny, so unimportant.”

The Doctor tilted his head as he looked down at her. “Oh Donna, but you are so important.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. 

“Changed your tune, Spaceman.” She noted. 

“I may have been a bit quick to judge.” He admitted sheepishly. 

“Yeah. Me too. Start over?” She smiled fondly up at him with a sparkle in her eyes. 

He didn’t get a chance to answer as a large Racnoss web floated into view. The sudden movement of gas and dust drew his attention away from Donna and back out into space. Her gaze followed his and he heard her gasp in wonder. 

“The first rock.” She whispered. 

“The Racnoss.” He frowned and ran back inside to look at the screens in the Tardis. He scowled as he looked through the data that was whizzing past on the monitors, too fast for any human to see. If he was correct, which he normally was, at this point in time the Racnoss were weak and retreating from the war, but the Time Lords had found them, or so he thought. The Racnoss were wiped out to prevent them from destroying whole planets and races. If they’d been allowed to continue and evolve there would have been no universe left to enjoy. “Hold on. The Racnoss are hiding from the war. What's it doing?” He looked back to Donna who was still gazing out into space. 

“Exactly what you said.” Donna mused. 

He frowned and ran back over to her, instinctively he took hold of her hand, lacing their fingers together. She looked down at their hands but didn’t pull away. His eyes flickered over the sight in front of them. It was incredible. 

The colours danced around them as the Earth began to spin into existence. Thank God that Donna had been his soulmate. He couldn’t begin to imagine watching this in shades of grey. It had been less than a day and already he was forgetting how the world looked like that. How had he lived for two whole lifetimes without colour? All his adventures with Rose were so… lifeless in his memory. The end of the Earth, exploding in a blast of white light seemed lightyears away from the hope and iridescent birth of the Earth with Donna. It was all quite poetic really. 

“Oh, they didn't just bury something at the centre of the Earth. They became the centre of the Earth.” He murmured as he tried to focus on the real reason they had arrived here. They had a planet to save and he still needed to get the Huon particles out of his soulmate. As tantalising as it was to see her glowing with the same light of Time Lord’s regeneration, it would destroy her if they stayed too long. He just needed to get her to the medical bay of the Tardis before the Empress could…

The Tardis jerked throwing them both back inside and the doors slammed shut. 

Too late. 

They were being pulled back.

* * *

Donna Noble stood outside the Tardis. The mad blue box that the Doctor called home. Their adventure was finished and the Earth had been saved. Now she just had to face Christmas day with her family. She hadn’t quite decided whether to continue lying to her parents by pretending she had lost her colours again now that Lance had died, or to come clean about the Doctor. 

She wondered what all the Christmas decorations in their house looked like now she would be able to see them properly. The tree must be a complete mess. It was a miracle that her mother allowed her to decorate without any guidance. It was one of the only things Donna still liked about Christmas, decorating the tree. She had always loved watching the lights twinkle like stars amongst the branches. Hopefully the baubles wouldn’t be explosive ones this time though. 

She could do without any more drama on Christmas day, thank you very much. 

Still she would miss this mad alien man who had given her so much and brought colour into her life. He would continue to travel the universe and she would continue her life here on Earth. Hopefully the colours would stay with her for the rest of her life. She couldn’t imagine the panic of not knowing what had happened to the Doctor if she woke up to grey. That crazy wonderful dazzling man kept them safe from God knows what. She didn’t know what the Earth would do without him. She wasn’t sure what she would do without him. 

“Well, you could always…” He trailed off and glanced down at his sodden trainers. 

“What?” She asked with a tilt of her head.

“Come with me?” He stared down at her with big brown eyes, soft and hopeful. 

Donna felt her heart soar in her chest. 

He wanted her! 

An unimportant temp from Chiswick. She thought about messing with him, pretending that she wasn’t interested but she didn’t want to tempt fate. She couldn’t lose him, not after everything they’d been through. Donna Noble finally had a soulmate and she wasn’t letting him go that easily, even if he was a skinny streak of alien nothing. 

She wanted him. 

With his daft brown hair and brown eyes and brown suit. She wanted to learn all the different names for all the different shades of brown around the universe. She wanted to know why the sky was a different blue to the Tardis. She wanted to know if she really did love purple and what was so good about green and gingers anyway. 

“Oh go then” She grinned and he scooped her up into a flying hug. 

The Doctor and Donna Noble ready to begin their big adventure together around the whole of space and time. 

Soulmates.

And without a second thought Donna ran inside the Tardis, ready for the next chapter of her life to begin.


	2. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please trust me with this chapter. All is not what it seems.
> 
> There are three chapters after all. But warnings for like... major angst in this one. Also shorter chapter, on the basis that this entire fic was originally one chapter but it made more sense to split it up.

Donna woke up with a gasp. Her head was pounding like she had the worst hangover. What had she been doing all night? She could hear a strange melancholy crying, ringing in her ears like a siren. She groaned and buried her face in her pillow. She would have to remind her mother not to let her drink so much in future. 

“Bloody Nerys!” She moaned, her words muffled by her pillow. 

She could hear voices from downstairs, her mother and Gramps and… a voice she didn’t recognise. Well, wasn’t that wizard? Her family had guests and she was bloody hungover. That was it, she was friend-breaking up with Nerys. She didn’t need her toxicity in her life. Donna Noble was a grown woman who should be capable of having a drink without feeling like death in the morning. 

She turned onto her back and opened her eyes.

“What the?” She gasped. 

She had colours. 

How on Earth did she have colours? 

“No no no!” She pulled herself to her feet. 

She must have met her soulmate whilst blinding drunk and hadn’t even realised. That was just bloody typical of her. She would bet that Lance would have a field day when he found out. They wouldn’t have to go ahead with the wedding after all. Now if only she could track down her actual soulmate. Maybe they could just reuse the wedding prep they’d done already? There was no use wasting it. 

She slowly made her way downstairs taking in all the different colours in the house, funnily enough she found she could identify all the names of the colours. Her hair was ginger, a sort of orange that was a bit like red. The walls were cream, almost pastel yellow. The ceiling was white although there was definitely a greyish tinge to the white, it wasn’t a pure white like paper. Her top was purple and her jeans were a faded demin blue. 

She’d never read of anyone who just instinctively knew colours. 

Everyone knew the basics. The sky was blue, the grass was green, but Donna would argue that the sky wasn’t always blue. Sometimes it was pink and purple and orange. Sometimes it was lit up in shades of green and teal and turquoise as lights streaked across the midnight sky. 

Her head pulsed with a sudden stabbing pain. “Holy shhh” The curse faded to a hiss as she grabbed her temples. 

What was wrong with her?

“Donna?” Her mum called from the living room. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.” She called back weakly as black spots danced in front of her eyes and a bloody red seeped into the corners of her vision. 

“I should go.” A man said as she rounded the corner and she almost walked straight into him. 

He was a tall handsome man in a muddy brown pinstriped suit and hair the colour of chocolate. He looked like he’d been crying. His eyes were red and puffy. Donna frowned. Those eyes should never look so sad. They should be twinkling with excitement as he raced around the universe. 

Donna gasped as her knees gave out and she fell into his arms. “Flipping hell.”

“Donna? Are you alright?” He asked quietly as he tilted her chin up so he could see her face properly. 

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“John Smith. Friend of Wilf’s.” He explained as he helped her to her feet. “He’s told me all about you.” 

Donna shook her head. “No. This isn’t right.” She stammered through the pain in her head. “John Smith? No one’s just called John Smith. Don’t be daft, Spaceman.”

The man froze and she heard her mum cry. “It’s not working! Doctor you said she’d be alright!” 

Doctor. 

That was his name. 

She knew that.

“Colours!” She gasped before she passed out.

* * *

The Doctor was frantic as he lay Donna back down onto her bed. He’d raced up the stairs with tears streaming down his cheeks and his unconscious soulmate in his arms. Shades of grey were already starting to fade in and out of his vision. Donna’s eyes and hands were glowing with regeneration energy but her body couldn’t cope. Humans had not evolved to contain a Time Lord consciousness and the power of the untempered schism. Her hair fanned out like phoenix feather’s behind her. 

“No no no.” He cried desperately. “Donna please. You’ve got to forget me. I can’t lose you. I can’t. I just can’t.” He pleaded with his unconscious soulmate. 

He placed his hands on her temples. He could try again. He would have to remove more memories. He hadn’t done enough. He cried out in pain as a tendril of golden, no grey, no golden light whipped against his hands. He jumped back from his best friend and inspected the burns on his fingers. The defence mechanisms he’d placed in her mind had been triggered and now he couldn’t get close enough to her to fix it. 

“Donna!!” He cried helplessly as the door flew open behind him. 

“Oh my god.” He heard Sylvia gasp behind him. “What’s happening to her?”

“My little girl.” Wilf sobbed. “Doctor, tell me you can save her. You promised me you’d look after her.”

The Doctor shoved the humans out of the door and slammed it shut behind them. He barely had enough time to sonic the lock in place before sliding down the wooden panels as his strength began to fail. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t bare to watch his world fade to grey as Donna’s mind began to burn. 

“Oi! Spaceman.” Donna croaked from the bed. 

His eyes shot up and he scrambled to kneel at her side, taking her hand in his and bringing her wrist up to his lips. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He whispered. 

“I still remember.” She breathed weakly. There were now streaks of grey in her hair and his own suit had lost its brown tinge. 

“I failed. I can’t save you.” He murmured against the skin of her hand. “Oh Donna, my Donna.” 

“But I remember.” 

He looked up at her face and to his surprise she was smiling. She was about to die but she was smiling. He stared in wonder as the golden circle in her eyes began to blend with the shimmering turquoise as it swirled together into grey. 

Everything was grey. 

He closed his eyes and kissed her hand as if his life depended on it. 

“Sleep well, my Donna.” He whispered as his hearts shattered into a million pieces. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry!!! 
> 
> Trust me!
> 
> I'll fix it! The tags say so!


	3. A New Beginning

Donna burned. 

Her mind. Her body. Her soul. 

All of it burning. 

She slept silently through the burning as the Doctor sobbed by her side, pleading for her to wake up, begging her to live, never daring to open his eyes to a world of black and white. 

Her eyes glowed in the darkness of her room. 

Then tendrils of light began to dance around her body. 

And the Doctor finally looked up. He blinked as his brain adjusted to the shades of grey that had been absent in his life for over two Earth years, relatively speaking. There was a bright light surrounding Donna’s body. 

“No, but that’s impossible.” He whispered awestruck by the sight of his soulmate’s body glowing on the bed. 

He rummaged in this pockets for his sonic screwdriver, taking three attempts to find the right pocket and then adjusted the settings to diagnostics. He scanned Donna’s body and then looked intently at the readings. He almost dropped the device when he saw what it was telling him. 

“Donna.” He breathed in wonder as he ran his hands through his hair and then wiped the tears from his eyes. 

“Doctor! What’s going on in there?” Wilf called through the door. “Is she alright? Is my Donna alright?” 

The Doctor spun round and opened the door to let her grandfather and mother in. “I have no idea.” He admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I think… I think she’s regenerating.”

“She’s what?” Sylvia shouted in a very Donna-esque manner. 

“Regenerating. It’s something my people do when we’re hurt, but she’s human. She can’t!” He tugged at his hair. “It’s impossible!” 

The light exploded out of Donna’s body and the three conscious humanoids shielded their eyes and ducked down to avoid the splinters of wood and glass as Donna’s window shattered. Sylvia Noble was crying into her father’s arms and the old man was holding his daughter close. 

But the Doctor couldn’t look away. 

Donna was alive.

She collapsed down on the bed in a flurry of ginger hair and he ran to her side. 

* * *

Donna noticed her hearts first.

Plural hearts. She had two of them, not to mention a bunch of memories that didn’t belong to her. The last thing she could really remember was begging the Doctor not to take her memories which obviously hadn’t worked. She was back in her bedroom in Chiswick. Earth. 

It smelt like Earth. 

Ooh that was weird. She could feel the planet spinning around her. Was this what it was like all the time for the Doctor? 

She opened her eyes and grinned widely as she saw the deep purple walls of her bedroom through strands of bright orange hair. She still had colour! Get in there! That was brilliant. She sat up in her bed and noticed the Doctor’s boyish face staring back at her like he’d seen a ghost.

Salt. 

She could taste salt in the air. 

No. Not salt. Tears. She looked around at her family. Each and every one of them had tears rolling down their cheeks. She laughed. 

“Oh my god!” She cried giddily. “You thought I was dead!” 

The Doctor sniffed, affronted by the accusation and wiped his face but it did nothing to hide the red puffiness of his eyes. “No.” He protested. “It’s just been a long day.”

“You did! You thought I was dead!” She sprung up and swung her arms around his neck. He laughed and hugged her tightly back, burying his face against her body. “Daft Martian. I told you. I’m going to be with you forever.” 

“Now hang on a minute, missy!” Her mother yelled but Donna covered her mouth with her hand.

“Hush.” She whispered. 

“Donna?” Gramps asked cautiously.

“Yes! Hello. That’s me. Isn’t it? It is, isn’t it?” She turned to the Doctor to check. “I am me?”

He grinned and nodded. “Same old Donna. Regeneration energy probably ran out before it could get around to changing your appearance. Hearts?”

“Two.”

He nodded as if he’d been expecting that. _Telepathy?_

_Check._ She replied with a grin. 

He frowned and cupped her face in his hands. “Colours?”

“Brighter than ever.” She said as she leaned into his touch. “A couple of new ones you’ll have to explain though.”

He beamed down at her. “You’re still my soulmate!” He laughed and pulled her into another hug. “My colours came back. You regenerated and my colours came back! That’s never happened before. It’s brilliant. Oh Donna Noble you are brilliant!” 

“What? But her soulmate died! Lance, he died! That’s why she ran away to travel with you!” Sylvia protested.

Donna felt her hearts, weird that there were two of them, skip a couple of beats in her chest. They’d never told her mother. She’d never stayed home long enough to tell her mother before. She looked up at the Doctor who had gone white and his soft brown eyes were panic-stricken. She glanced over at Gramps who was sniggering behind her mother, his eyes twinkling with joy. Donna grasped the Doctor’s hand tightly and tugged.

“Run!” She yelled. 

They ran through the house giggling like mad until they reached the Tardis. Donna could feel the thrum of the ship tickling against her mind, stronger than it ever had before as she snapped her fingers and the doors flew open. 

“Oi!” The Doctor protested. “Stop showing off!”

“Make me, Spaceman!” She giggled as she danced around the console, expertly flicking switches and dials to set their flightpath into the time vortex. She set the controls to random. She always loved random. The thrill of never knowing where they would end up, anywhere and anytime. The Doctor joined her dance around the Tardis console as he helped to keep the ship steady, working in harmony with her. 

“With pleasure, Spacegirl.” He teased back and then they were off. 

Into their future together. The DoctorDonna. 

Soulmates through all of time and space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada!! I hope this makes up for the angst of the 2nd chapter! Sorry the last two chapters were so short but it was supposed to be a one-shot but it didn't make sense as one chapter. Well, imo at least. Hope you like it! :D I forgot to mention before this story was once again inspired by the lovely people of the TenDonna group chat on tumblr. They are wonderful. I've also been getting reacquainted with my drawing tablet so check out my tumblr for a couple of tenDonna fan arts that I did this week instead of writing :P   
> \- Yaz (AvengersBarnes)


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